Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. No final vote of any town meeting session passing or rejecting a measure under any article in the warrant shall be operative until ten days after the adoption of the vote exclusive of Sundays and holidays.

SECTION 2. (a) If within the said ten day period, a petition signed by not less than three precent of the registered voters from each precinct containing their names and addresses as they appear on the list of registered voters, is filed in the office of the selectmen requesting that the question or questions involved in any such vote be submitted to the registered voters of the town at large, then the operation of such vote shall be further suspended pending its determination as herein provided.

(b) The office of the board of selectmen shall within one day, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, following such a filing submit the petitions to the board of registrars which shall within five days thereafter certify the number of signatures which are the names of voters.

(c) Within fourteen days of the filing and including the time for certification by the board of registrars of a referendum petition, the selectmen shall call a special election which shall be held within fourteen days after issuing the call; provided, however, that if a regular or special election is to be held not more than thirty days following the date the petition is filed, they may provide that the question or questions involved be presented to the voters at the same election.

SECTION 3. (a) All votes shall be taken by official ballot, and the check list shall be used in the same manner as in the election of town officers. The question so submitted shall be determined by a majority vote of the registered voters of the town voting thereon, but no action of the town meeting shall be reversed unless at least twenty-five percent of the registered voters of the town shall so vote.

(b) The question so submitted shall be stated on the ballot in substantially the same language and form in which they were stated when presented to the town meeting as appears from the records of said meeting.

(c) This election shall be held on a Saturday unless it is to be held in conjunction with another election and the polls shall be open no later than two o'clock in the afternoon and shall be closed not earlier than eight o'clock in the evening.

(d) If a petition is not filed within the ten days exclusive of Sundays and holidays of a final vote of the town meeting, it shall become effective.

SECTION 4. This act shall be submitted for acceptance to the voters of the town of Millbury at the next annual town election, in the form of the following question which shall be placed on the official ballot to be used for the election of town officers at said election: "Shall an act passed by the general court in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-two, entitled 'An Act providing for referendum petitions and elections in the town of Millbury', be accepted " If a majority of the votes cast in answer to said question is in the affirmative, then this act shall take full effect, but not otherwise.

SECTION 5. The town of Millbury may revoke its acceptance of this act by a majority vote at an annual town election.